Illiteracy is a Disease
...es only buy what they have seen on TV commercials even though it is expensive; because they only recognize products by their labels, so they do not know there cheaper products exist. Thus, they have very limited buying power. In addition, their freedom is limited by not knowing how to read. For instance, illiterates cannot travel anywhere because all traffic signs and name of stations are exotic to them. Their territories are always restricted by their illiteracy. Besides, lives of these people are threatened by illiteracy. They cannot take proper medicines because they cannot identify its use and direction when they need them, and they cannot find emergency call number from yellow page although their loved one is moaning. These are physical impacts of this disease. Moreover, when lacking an ability of literacy, an individual gradually become distant from society. English made me an illiterate person when I came to America. I have had many experiences what illiterate persons might have experienced. Although I tried hard to say clearly, an employee of DMV asked me what I said again and again with an angry face, and an employee of a telephone company used to ask me if there is a better English speaker. There were no Americans who wanted to talk with me more than ten minutes. The Americans might have thought that, talking with me was like talking with an eight-year-old child or even worse. After such responses, I lost confidence in English, and I had no way but shrink from American society. The disease damaged my mentality. Kozol says, ¡°Not knowing the world that lies concealed behind those words is a more terrifying feeling¡±(510). However, illiteracy is curable when illiterates strive against it. Illiteracy seems to be a disability in society because illiterate people have many disadvantages in their lives. In fact, not knowing how to read and write means disaster in today¡¯s society. Nevertheless, illiteracy is not a trouble like losing some part of body and never being able to recover it. After cured, an illiterate person will become normal. The person will love and enjoy everything that exists in the world as a blind person does when the blindness is cured. The person will love to compare prices of prod...